Hunger for Freedom — Chapter 10

*"The days drag on like invisible chains. There is no sun. There is no night. Only the gray that occupies everything. The ground is hard, damp, cold. Every movement hurts, every breath seems forcibly torn from me. There are no baths, no clean clothes. The water that arrives is scarce and cold, only enough to remind me that I still exist.

My head was shaved. My glasses were taken away. I see shadows, but no faces. The world has lost its contours, and my own reflection has become a distant memory. Every hour is torture: hunger gnaws at the body, but the cold gnaws at the mind. I try to resist, but every night, lying on the freezing floor, I feel less than human. I am reduced to bones and hunger, to a body surrendered to the void.

Silence is another form of violence. There are no screams, no crying, no laughter. Only the echo of one's own thoughts, repeating and wearing themselves down. Sometimes I wonder if I still think, or if I am merely surviving, trapped between the body that suffers and the mind that cannot forget.

I feel humiliation in every gesture: food distributed like an offering, orders obeyed with my head bowed, eyes averted. Pride, that small flame inside me, fights not to go out. But it is difficult when every minute reminds me that I no longer own anything—not my body, not my time, not my destiny.

And yet I think. And yet I remember. Pietá, the dust, the hunger of childhood. Ceres, the Mother, the bread she gave and the hand that erases. Theo, the betrayal, the laughter that sealed my sentence. I try to hold on to this, because it is all I have left: memory, silent resistance, the last spark of a being who refuses to be completely domesticated.

I sit on the cold floor, without support. Every movement is a reminder of what I have lost: skin, warmth, dignity. But I hold on to one thought: if I die, I will die conscious that I chose every step, that even humiliated, even hungry, even reduced to almost nothing, my mind still belongs to me. And if there is one thing Ceres cannot erase, it is the memory that a man dared to say no."*

Gene in Ceres' prison, before the execution

"Here I am. Now that everything is over for me. I denied the obvious, what every nation desired: bread without hunger, a roof without cracks, school for everyone, a future shaped by my own abilities. And still, I say this: I am not a pig to be raised, fed, and killed in silence. I want the freedom to control my destiny, to spit words that burn. That is why you condemn me, Mother: not for betrayal, but for blasphemy. I hate you. And I know my death will serve as an example, so that others will not dare dream against you, who feeds us, educates us, but also devours us and fucks us.

In this gray prison there is no time. I don't know whether days or months have passed. Sometimes, all I have left is a small round point of light, as if it were the memory of a forgotten sun. Here, hope is worse than pain; hope is torture, and time is the executioner. I was trained for everything: to march, to serve, to die in honor of the Mother. But not to die this way. They never teach us how to die as traitors.

Maybe I did it for fun. Maybe a kind of fun that cost me my life. And still, I think of Daime and his damned joke: 'libertarians are so skinny you can see them with both eyes through the crack in the door.' I laughed on the outside, but inside, it opened a wound. Because it is true: where does freedom live?

Freedom… beautiful and fragile word. Everyone dreams of it, but everyone loses it. It is easier to tear it away than to conquer it. What good is freedom to choose paths if those paths lead to destruction itself? And yet, isn't that what makes it beautiful? Using freedom to lose oneself, to make mistakes, to pay the full price. Freedom with responsibility—but who has it? Freedom to keep knowledge only for oneself, out of nothing but ego and power—isn't that also a prison?

And then I think: what weighs more, a loaf of bread or freedom? There lies the cruel joke. In a debate about freedom, philosophers, poets, and martyrs would make their speeches. And before they could even finish, you, Mãe Ceres, would enter with an empty stomach and your hands full of bread. You wouldn't say a single word. You would simply show them the basket. And everyone, even the wisest, would fall silent.

That is your victory, Mother: you do not need ideas, only bread. You are the most sadistic of mothers, because you would thrust your hand into our guts like puppets of shame. With delicate fingers and nails of coarse sand, you would crush our souls. And everyone, humiliated, would still thank you."

Gene's Testament

*"I don't have much time left. I know the execution is approaching and that my body will be consumed so that nothing remains. This is how Ceres maintains its order: through absolute erasure.

I was born in Pietá, and from an early age I knew hunger and dust. Later, I was received as a son by the Mother. They gave me food, education, shelter, and a dignified future. But everything given as a gift can also be a chain. I refused to be led like a well-fed animal. The crime they accuse me of is nothing more than this: refusing obedience and daring to choose.

Theo, you were the one who spoke my name. You said I was the one making the graffiti, and it was true. I did it, yes, and I do not regret it. Every word written on those walls was an act of remembrance against the silence the Mother imposes upon us. Your voice sealed my fate, but I do not deceive myself: more than your own will, it was Ceres' hand that guided your betrayal. Friendship cannot survive when the system demands sacrifice.

Hope is my greatest enemy. It prolongs the torment, stretches the hours. In here, I understand that we were trained for every form of service, even to die for the Mother. But not to die against her. That is why my death will have no witness, no epitaph, no mourning. It will only serve as a warning.

As for freedom, I know now that it is a fragile word, easier to lose than to conquer. The Mother does not refute it with arguments: she simply offers bread. And faced with bread, everyone falls silent. That is the greatest cruelty: there is no need to defeat our ideas; it is enough to feed our hunger.

If any memory of me remains after the flames, let it be this: for one brief moment, a son of Pietá, adopted by Ceres, dared to say no. Nothing more than that. Nothing more than the gesture of refusal."*

Manifesto of Hidden Freedom

*"You offer us everything. Food, shelter, knowledge, a future. You call it perfection, care, love. And while the body is satisfied, the soul grows narrower. While the city grows in order, we grow in silence, crushed beneath the invisible weight of our own submission.

You call conformity progress, obedience peace, surveillance justice. But no one counts the price that is paid: one's very essence, one's memory, one's ability to choose. And that is where the flaw reveals itself: freedom has no weight, and that is why you cannot see it. Because whoever possesses it, even in fragments, can never truly be contained.

Do not be deceived by bread, shelter, or perfect education. All of this is merely the golden chain that binds the spirit. The good you give us does not compensate for what you take from us: the right to make mistakes, to fail, to flee the path they have laid out for us.

Whoever fears losing comfort will never know the taste of freedom. Whoever measures life by what they receive rather than by what they choose will never understand the greatness of existing without chains. Freedom is fragile, invisible, but it is the one thing you can never truly take from us.

So choose. Choose to resist. Not with weapons, not with screams, but with memories, words, silent acts. A painted wall, a whispered song, a gesture that escapes surveillance—each of these acts is an invisible blow to the heart of Ceres.

Let this manifesto serve as a warning: the benefit that blinds can never surpass the consciousness that awakens. The city may offer everything, it may control everything, but it can never destroy the essence of the one who dares to keep freedom alive, even if it costs them their own life."*

The days blur together. There is no sun here, no night, only gray. The ground is hard, damp, freezing. Every muscle hurts, every breath is an effort. For weeks I have not felt water on my body except for the leak that drips from time to time. There are no clean clothes, no bath. My shaved head burns with the cold, and my eyes, without glasses, see only distorted shadows.

And yet, she is with me. Not physically, but in every thought, every memory: Mãe Ceres' voice emerging like pure mockery.

"Do you think what you think matters? That refusing changes anything?"

"Cry. But eat. Full belly, and don't forget: even then, you are still mine."

Hunger gnaws at the body, but it is the cold that gnaws at the mind. Every night is an eternity of pain and lucidity, and the humiliation is complete: I sit on the freezing floor, without support, my body surrendered to abandonment, and the city reminds me of everything it offered—as if telling me that it completely owns me.

Sometimes, in the middle of the delirium of cold, I can almost hear the sound of a bucket of water being poured over me. Freezing, cutting into my skin, tearing away every reflex of resistance. And immediately comes the memory of warm bread, its sweet aroma, the food offered with mockery. As if Mãe were saying: “Look, here is everything that matters. The pain? Just a detail. Cry, but eat.”

Week after week, I realize that her presence needs no arguments, no logic. Every act of hunger, every exposed bone, every tremor from the cold is accompanied by her voice: mocking, teaching, reminding me that the body always yields before the mind. That the defeat of the spirit is easier when there is bread and warmth to deceive the conscience.

Even in humiliation, I try to resist. Memories of Pietá, memories of Theo, invisible scribbles on the walls, thoughts of freedom—all of it keeps a spark alive. But her voice does not rest:

"You expect too much from what does not exist. Rebellion is useless. Free? Only until you realize that nothing changes hunger, nothing changes the cold, nothing changes the hard floor. Here, even thoughts surrender."

And I chew the bread, warm and mocking, crying in silence. My body gives in, but my mind still resists. Every bite is a lesson: Mãe Ceres' logic cannot be confronted with bravery; one can only survive it. And even so, something inside me still refuses to bend completely.

I do not know how much longer I will endure, but I know that every pain, every hunger, every humiliation is recorded in my consciousness. Every moment is an act of silent resistance. Because freedom is not measured in comfort. And no matter how much she laughs, no matter how much she drenches me, feeds me, and humiliates me, she cannot erase the fact that a thought of refusal still survives within me.

Hallucinations and Memories of Hunger

The cold is no longer merely physical; it penetrates the bones, invades the thoughts. Hunger is no longer hunger. It is a machine that devours the body itself, makes the stomach chew flesh that does not exist, turns every muscle into stone, every vein into fire. I sit on the freezing floor, and the wall seems to sway, breathing as though it were alive.

Then the images come. Lines of people, thin and dirty faces, outstretched hands, pleading eyes. Children fighting over a piece of fallen bread, screams mixed with crying and pain. I remember the class, the photographs projected onto the screen, the violence caused not by hatred, but by hunger. Dead people scattered across the ground, bodies folding over their own misery. And I ask myself: where does freedom exist there? Where, if not in the memory of what should have been just, but never was?

The images blend with the space of the cell. The gray wall becomes a living mural, every shadow a figure begging, crying out, accusing. The bucket of freezing water returns to my mind, but now it is rain that cuts, a current that drags me away, and her voice, unconscious, echoes:

"Cry, but eat. Full belly. Here is everything that matters."

But I do not have enough bread to silence the delirium. My stomach seems to be eating me, every handful of hunger tearing through my body like an invisible blade. And still, I remember Pietá, the streets, the smell of earth and dust, the human warmth that cannot be found here. I remember Theo, traitor and brother, and I feel that even betrayal is smaller than the violence of hunger—because hunger corrodes more than a fist or a sword.

The shadows move, taking the shapes of starving children, of mothers weeping over the corpses of their children. I hear whispers of the dead speaking to me, asking: “Why didn't you feed us? Why did you care about freedom while we died?”

And then, paradoxically, comes the trace of mockery: the unconscious presence of the Mother, reminding me of the warm bread that will never be enough to erase memory, of the impeccable order that saves no one from the hunger that kills, of the cruel logic that says: “Everything is perfectly fair. Just obey and receive. Full belly, subdued mind.”

But despite the cold, the hunger, the humiliation, and the hallucinations threatening to swallow my reason, something inside me resists. A faint flame that refuses to be extinguished. A memory that freedom, even invisible, cannot be devoured, not even by the stomach that eats itself from within.

Philosophy of Hunger and Revelation

The cold and pain continue, but now they are merely background. Hunger becomes something else. More than pain, it is a voice. More than need, it is philosophy. For the first time, I feel what may be Mãe Ceres' fasting before her speeches: absolute attention to absence, the clarity that comes from deprivation, the eloquence of absence. Every muscle in the body remembers the void, every pulse teaches me that the world does not need to bend to my will, only to observe my resistance.

And strange as it may seem, inside this dark, damp cell, I smile. Freedom? Yes, freedom. Not the kind bought with bread, not the kind measured in benefits or city statistics, but the freedom to perceive everything, feel everything, and still exist without bending.

The prophets must have felt this before their revelations. Hunger is the most eloquent of teachers, the harshest of philosophies. It teaches about the body, about the spirit, about the absurdity of a world that says, “take, eat, but pay with your soul.”

And when they finally offer me the bread—warm, fragrant, mocking—I realize another miracle: the act of eating is the greatest spectacle on earth. To eat is to bear witness to existence, to laugh at pain, to understand the irony of absolute power: they humiliate me, control me, test me… and still, with every bite, I feel all of life revealing itself.

Laughing at the system has never been so easy, nor so sublime. The Mother does not care, she mocks, she dominates, but she also gives to me. And I accept the bread with a secret smile, because inside me, even in prison, I am freer than any city can measure.

Hunger, cold, humiliation, darkness: everything transforms into language, into philosophy, into laughter. And in the midst of all this, I realize: life is crueler, more beautiful, and more powerful than any logic of obedience. Eating is revolution. And even Mãe Ceres cannot erase what I feel now.

Whoever has freedom does not think about food. That is what I used to tell myself, on days that seemed like weeks, when cold and hunger seemed to be the only world. But that is not quite true. We do not want only food. We want art, we want freedom, we want to create, choose, exist outside the logic of the system.

And yet, food is the beginning of everything. Without it, nothing else is possible. That is why we do not abandon food. We want food before freedom, because freedom without a body is only abstraction. Eating is the first step toward any greater choice, any act of creation or rebellion.

I remember Theo. He turned me in. He betrayed me for Mãe Ceres. His logic was simple: obedience to the city above any affection, any bond. What he did is not surprising, but it hurts. Because even knowing that this is how things are, trusting someone remains human.

And Kat… Kat is pregnant with my child, whom I will never see. She does not know where I am. After I was handed over by the Silencers, I never saw her again. I believe they took her to Pietá without explanation, concealing her perfectly, using the city's obedience as a veil. Mãe Ceres is a master at erasing people, at turning absence into order.

So here I am, between cold, hunger, and gray walls, trying to hold on to something inside me that cannot be taken. Freedom, yes, but also memory, desire, and even the silent hope that the child I will never see might someday know that I existed.

Because, in the end, the life that is stolen from us is not measured in food or comfort, but in what we are still able to preserve inside the mind, even when the city tries to erase everything.

“Are our oppressors right about us?”

Preparation for the Execution

The cold no longer touches me. Hunger no longer hurts—it has become language, living philosophy, ancestral. Every muscle in my body remembers the void, every bone carries the clarity of absence. The cell, the damp floor, Mãe Ceres' mockery—all of it dissolves into an inner silence that no one can touch.

I know what will come: fire, the public, absolute pain. But I am not afraid. Not anymore. I have learned that freedom is not measured by walls, nor by bread, nor by cold or a bucket of freezing water. Freedom lives in consciousness, in the choice to remain whole even when everything is torn away.

The stomach that for weeks seemed to be eating me alive now grows calm at the memory of warm bread, offered with mockery. Mãe Ceres' irony is perfect: teaching through suffering, controlling through food, dominating through absurdity. But this lesson does not submit me; it only illuminates me. Eating is a miracle, feeling hunger is eloquence, resisting is philosophy.

As they lead me to D Square, where I will be burned, my mind opens. Every step is rhythmic, conscious. I remember the lines of Pietá, the bodies that died of hunger, the outstretched hands, the desperate eyes—and I realize: I am free inside, because I can choose what to feel, what to think, even in the face of fire.

I feel the future heat of the flames, but it is only the shadow of my own inner light. I smile, because even burned, my body will be consumed, but my consciousness, my freedom, can never be touched.

I see the faces of the people who obeyed, who bowed, and I realize: they are afraid of life. I am not. Mãe Ceres can control the body, but she cannot dominate the silent laughter of the one who understood the truth of existence.

And then, with my eyes closed, I breathe in the cold of the morning, the memory of the freezing floor, the smell of bread, the strength of hunger, and I say to myself:

"Burn me. My body will be yours. My consciousness will be mine. And in the fire, I will be freer than any city has ever measured."

The fire approaches. But Gene, even reduced to ashes, knows that he has already transcended the power of Mãe Ceres. The city can erase the flesh, but it can never destroy the freedom that blossomed in fasting, in bread, and in the secret smile before absurdity.

Anesthetized by Hunger, Toward the Fire

The body weighs as though it were made of lead. Every muscle refuses to obey; hunger has consumed even the natural reaction to pain. I am numb. Every step, every movement, is slow, almost nonexistent. I know, without needing to look, that the fire awaits me. My body already feels death approaching, but strangely, my mind opens.

The empty stomach no longer hurts; it merely remembers, teaches, transforms itself into pure consciousness. Every memory of Pietá, of starving children, of bodies crushed by scarcity, echoes like philosophy: hunger is eloquence, absence is language, suffering is a teacher. My body knows it will be consumed, but it is as though it had given up beforehand, allowing the mind to bloom above the flesh.

I feel the shadows of Mãe Ceres, mocking me, reminding me of the warm bread she offered, the bucket of cold water that stripped and humiliated me. Her presence is real and absurd, but now it no longer touches my inner freedom. Even anesthetized, I perceive the supreme irony: the more they take away, the more conscious I become.

Fear does not exist. The future heat of the fire is merely physical anticipation; my spirit no longer belongs to my body. I feel what prophets feel before revelation: absolute hunger, absolute silence, and within that void, a clarity that cannot fit into words. Eating, hunger, pain, cold, humiliation—everything transforms into transcendent experience.

I smile. A small smile, almost imperceptible, but whole. Freedom is not possession of the body or comfort; freedom is an intact consciousness, even when the body has been surrendered to its end. The fire cannot touch that. The system cannot measure that. And in the anesthetized darkness, Gene realizes: life is greater than any logic that tries to control it, greater than any fear they try to plant.

As they lead me away, the cold ground, the humiliation, the smell of smoke and hot iron blend with images of Pietá, hungry faces, and impossible freedom. Every memory is a spark, and every spark lights a smile: I am alive in what they can never touch.

And then, with my body about to be consumed, I realize that physical death is not defeat, but the final stage of a consciousness that refuses to yield.